


The Case Of Riz Gukgak

by invoked_duplicity



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen, Nerd Squad, Riz is a ball of anxiety but he's doing his best, aroace Adaine, there is some fabriz hinting if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invoked_duplicity/pseuds/invoked_duplicity
Summary: Riz wants to talk to someone about sexandstuff.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Riz Gukgak
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43
Collections: Dimension 20 Alphabet 2021





	The Case Of Riz Gukgak

Riz knows that he’s a good detective. He has solved many mysteries, big mysteries even. He solved the case of his missing friend Penny, he solved the case of his dad, he solved—or well, helped solve—the puzzle of The Nightmare King. He’s good at his job. 

But there is one mystery Riz has trouble solving, and that is the mystery of himself. 

He’s not good at asking for help even though he’s sure he could need some. Maybe he could talk about this with his mom. The thought of that alone makes him break out in a nervous sweat. It was already kind of the worst to talk to his dad about it. Jawbone is probably good at this, but Jawbone is poly and had sex with many people just like everyone else he knows. 

Everyone else he knows is just so goddamn horny. All the damn time. 

Riz stops pacing in front of his desk and stares out of the window for what feels like two minutes straight but is probably only a millisecond. 

Finally he decides to be brave. He managed to walk through the forest of the nightmare king, this is going to be a piece of cake. No big deal. As easy as stabbing a huge dragon, probably. 

His mom is sitting at the kitchen table buried in a bunch of papers and thick textbooks. 

“Hey mom. Can I—uh. Can I ask you something?”

His mom looks up from her work and she seems a little disoriented for a split second until her eyes focus on him and she nods. 

“Sure, sweetie. What’s up?”

She pushes away a stack of papers from the second chair at the table so he can sit down. Riz feels the need to start biting his nails, so he stuffs his hands into his pockets and sits down on the chair, his leg bouncing and his throat dry. 

“So. Uh—“

He searches for the right words. Words are hard and he’s never been very good at them. He knows clues. Feelings are just weird. 

“Have you ever—uh. Did you ever, like—um. Feel. Totally alone about something? Like, something that makes you you?”

Sklonda blinks for a second and then her gaze softens as she stretches out her hand to reach for his. Riz hopes that she can’t feel how sweaty his palms are as she squeezes his fingers. 

“Honestly? I think that is a very integral part of being a teenager. You think you’re really weird and no one would ever feel the same way and then somewhere along the way you find out that there are actually tons of people who are going through the exact same thing”, she says. 

Riz stares at the only spot on the table that hasn’t been covered with papers or books. 

“So, what you’re saying is... I have to look at the clues again and—and find out who else fits the profile?”

His mom ruffles his hair and Riz can see her shake her head fondly. 

“I wouldn’t have put it like that, sweetie. But. Sure, yeah. Find another suspect and interrogate them until you find the truth.”

Riz can work with that. 

“Thanks, mom”, he says and flees from the kitchen to leave Sklonda to her studies. Back in his room he looks at his pin board that, during the last two weeks, has been carefully prepped with Riz’ most difficult case yet—the case of Riz. 

His eyes follow the differently colored threads across pictures of his friends and notes that he took. 

All his friends are on the board and Riz looks at all their picture, one after the other. 

Everyone is horny. Everyone. 

Everyone except—

Riz grabs his crystal. He knows that, if he thinks about it too much and starts making plans, he is not going to do it because this is scary. And if he learned one thing on their quest for the Nightmare King’s crown, it’s that sometimes scary things are easier if you just rush ahead without a plan. 

“Do you have time to talk?”, he texts.

Riz chews on his bottom lip without realizing that it started bleeding because his teeth are too sharp. He looks at his crystal and tries to will his beating heart to go slower but he fails miserably and as soon as he sees the three small dots that indicate typing on the other end of the line, he sucks in a breath and stares at the display as if he might will the answer to appear faster. 

“I have free time. Do you want to come over? Is everything alright?”

Riz sucks the blood off his bottom lip and weighs the options. He loves the manor, but it’s loud and noisy. Noisy in a way that sometimes makes his skin crawl. He swallows, lets his fingers hover over the keyboard for a second. 

If everything goes to shit he can always leave the manor, but it would be awkward to throw a friend out of his office. 

“I’ll come over. Be right there.”

Riz stuffs his phone into his pocket and rushes out of his room with adrenaline pumping through his veins. Maybe he isn’t such a great detective after all if he never really connected the dots about one of his closest friends. 

He remembers a conversation about “please don’t have sex in our tent when we’re also in there” and “this is too much information and I’m very uncomfortable right now” now that he really thinks about it. 

Adaine isn’t interested in dating anyone. Just like him. Well. No, that’s not correct, Riz thinks, as he rushes down the street to catch the bus. Maybe he would consider dating someone. But sex. Sex seems. Well. 

Maybe Adaine doesn’t want to talk about sex. Maybe she will look at him the same way Aelwyn looks at people sometimes. Riz really doesn’t want to think about Aelwyn, because that makes him think about Fabian and that on the other hand makes him think of them together and how much Riz wishes they weren’t a thing. 

If Riz cannot solve the mystery of Riz, maybe Adaine can help him like when they were investigating her mom’s room back on spring break. He goes through his pinboard in his mind and comes to the conclusion that Adaine is on there, but she has only been connected to Biz by a green threat, meaning one-sided sexual interest. 

He is so occupied by his own oversight that he barely registers getting to the manor. The thought of going through the whole house and potentially risking questions about why he’s visiting makes his skin crawl uncomfortably, so he uses his sword and teleports directly into Adaine’s bedroom. A loud shriek accompanied by the sound of a heavy book dropping to the floor makes him turn his head. 

“Was it really necessary to do this? We have doors”, Adaine says and Riz looks around to find her sitting on the bunkbed she shares with Aelwyn. Thankfully Aelwyn is nowhere to be seen so Riz can freak out in peace about what he’s supposed to talk about. 

“Yes. Sorry, uh—I thought maybe I might meet Kristen or—or Jawbone or. Someone else. And then they might look at me and ask questions or maybe Kristen would joke about something sex related and then I might have to vomit all over the stairs and—“

“Riz, slow down. Do you want to hold Boggy?”, Adaine asks and scoots over on her bed to make space for him. Riz doesn’t really feel like sitting down so he starts pacing instead but he does take Boggy into his hands. His brain has gone into overdrive, he knows it as soon as it supplies him with the question of whether or not frogs feel conflicted about sex. 

“What’s wrong?”, Adaine asks, her pale blue eyes following him as he walks through the room as if the movement could calm his nerves. 

“So—uh. You know. I was wondering if maybe... I could talk to you about. You know. Sexandstuff.”

“Sorry, about what?”

“Sex. And... stuff”, Riz repeats and he can feel his face burning as he stares down at Boggy so he doesn’t have to look at Adaine’s face. 

“Oh, um. Well, I’m not sure if I’m the best person for that—“

“I know! That’s why—that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Because. Like. You know. You think it’s icky when Kristen talks about sixtynine and stuff.”

Riz takes a quick glance at Adaine and is relieved to find that she doesn’t look at him the same way that Ragh looked at him the first time they met each other. That is certainly encouraging. She actually looks a little thoughtful. Maybe even understanding. Maybe he’s reading her all wrong. Maybe she’s about to punch him out of the window because he mentioned Kristen and sixtynine and—

“You mean because I’m probably asexual.”

“Yeah, you’re—what?”

“Asexual. And aromantic, but I suppose this is about the sex part, not the romance part.”

“You’re. Wait. Ohhh—“

Adaine pulls up her shoulders and gestures to the free space on the bed beside her. Riz’ brain has frozen over because he’s heard a term he hasn’t heard before and now he wants to find out what it means.

The truth is that he considered searching for stuff like this on the crystalweb, but the thought of typing anything sex related into a search engine had him almost vomiting all over his office floor because it made him feel so terribly embarrassed and nervous that he quickly put the thought aside. 

“So—uh. What’s... that?”

“Well, I talked about it to Jawbone and he gave me some things to read and I’ve been doing some research, because... you know, everyone is going on dates and talks about kisses or masturbation and all that and—um. Well. This stuff mostly just always makes me uncomfortable. And I thought, you know. It’s maybe because elves are a bit prudish, but Aelwyn is certainly not like that and she talks about sex like it’s no big deal, so I... I wanted to figure out what it means.”

Boggy makes a sound like a squeaky toy as Riz accidentally squishes him a little too hard in his sudden excitement in the face of new clues and he quickly hands him back to Adaine. 

“So. You’re saying that—that it’s like... normal?”

Adaine shrugs. 

“Probably not normal, if you’re going by the textbook definition of normal. But not normal doesn’t equal bad, you know. Just how being poly isn’t necessarily normal but that doesn’t mean it’s inferior to monogamy. It’s just a thing that some people are.”

“So. So, uh—can I read that stuff? That you read?”, he asks, trying very hard not to keep chewing on his bottom lip again. 

Adaine gives him a smile that makes warmth spread all through his body. 

“Sure. I can lend you the book”, Adaine says and gets up from the bed, hands Boggy back to Riz and goes over to one of her numerous bookshelves to pull a small, purple book out from the top row. 

“It’s really interesting, from a strictly scientific standpoint, you know”, she says as she hands it to him. Riz looks down at the book. A whole book. Just about feeling weird about dating and sex. His mom was right after all. 

“Thanks”, he croaks and blinks rapidly. 

“I’m really glad there’s at least one other person who isn’t so terribly horny all the time”, Adaine says and Riz looks up at her, his heart twice its normal size. 

“Yeah. Me too.”


End file.
